NYC's Night Parliament looking to legalize public drunkenness

 

 NY Post

Bar? None!

New Yorkers would be free to openly drink their cares away in public areas under a new proposal by the city’s Nightlife Advisory Board — but residents near booze-soaked Washington Square Park are already feeling green around the gills at the thought.

In a report issued last week, the NAB — established by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2017 — offered 15 recommendations on how to boost New York’s nightlife and maintain good relationships between hot spots and their residential neighbors.

Among the NAB’s suggestions, under a section labeled “Nightlife Beyond Bars and Clubs,” was taking the party outside.

“New Yorkers need affordable options for all kinds of nightlife,” the proposal says. “In most global cities people can gather informally in squares and parks to drink with friends and even dance to the rhythm of impromptu concerts.

“Drinking in the public space and dancing anywhere in the city should be regulated but not prohibited.”

But locals near Manhattan’s Washington Square Park — where lawlessness including public drinking has reigned in recent months, garnering no more than a shrug from de Blasio — gave a thumb’s down to the idea.

 “I’m all for people to have a place to gather, but I’m not in favor of [the NAB proposal],” said Carol Meylan, a social worker and Greenwich Village resident. “Behavior gets unruly and reckless.

“I think there would be more violence,” added Meylan, 62. “We already witnessed people getting into fights, a lot of broken glass, a lot of behavior where crowds can’t be managed that well.”

Al Rosario, a doorman of Meylan’s park-adjacent building, said he’s seen booze turn the crowds in the green space belligerent.

“Even when they have good music and entertainment, once these people are drinking, they don’t want to leave, they don’t want to stop,” said Rosario, 60. “It would be so hard to control. … You’re only going to start a fire here.”

Huge drop in criminal summonses

From the Daily News:

The city is moving in the “right direction” with a dramatic drop in tickets for small-time crimes like public drinking and public urination, Mayor de Blasio said Sunday.

The number of criminal summonses dropped 90% for the period from June to October, compared with the year before, after the City Council passed a law allowing cops to give civil tickets for the minor offenses, which also include unreasonable noise and littering.

But the new civil summonses did not make up the difference in tickets — there were about 26,0000 civil summonses, while criminal summonses dropped more than 50,000, according to the data released Friday.

BQE bums

From the Queens Chronicle:

Assemblyman Francisco Moya (D-Jackson Heights) is looking to improve the situation at an underpass by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Jackson Heights, saying it’s become a hangout for vagrants.

“They’re lighting fires,” Moya said. “They’re smoking marijuana, drinking. It creates a very unsafe area for the residents who are living there.”

The lawmaker personally visited the underpass, by 35th Avenue and 69th Street, after a constituent emailed his office about the problem. They were joined by a community affairs officer from the 115th Precinct.

In addition to homeless people sleeping and loitering there, Moya said the underpass is “very dark, even during the daytime.”

The assemblyman has requested the NYPD temporarily place floodlights at the site and increase patrols in the area.

He’s also looking for the homeless people there to be brought to proper housing and get the services they need.

Drunk tennis fans get a pass

From the NY Post:

Parks Department officers are under strict orders not to issue summonses for public drinking, urination and other offenses around Arthur Ashe Stadium so as not to spoil the fun for tournament-goers, it was revealed Thursday.

In the past, Parks Enforcement Patrol officers usually wrote hundreds of tickets during the two-week tennis championship, said Geoffrey Croft, the head of NYC Park Advocates.

But this year, officers were specifically told by the head of the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park command, “Don’t write summonses during the US Open,” Croft said.

“Talk about a Tale of Two Cities — it’s selective enforcement,” one officer told Croft, who writes the blog “A Walk in the Park.”

“Crime is going up and summonses are down. We’re being hindered from doing our job. The US Open is calling the shots.”

The head of the union that represents the PEP officers, Joseph Puleo, accused the city of “using our officers as political pawns and allowing crimes to be committed without coverage.”

Get ready to be pissed on more

From the NY Post:

In January, the City Council voted to reclassify low-level crimes such as public urination, public consumption of alcohol, littering, subway fare evasion and taking up multiple seats on the subway from criminal to civil offenses.

But if California is any indication, it may not have been a smart move.

Retail giants with locations in the Golden State, including Safeway, Target, Rite Aid and CVS pharmacies, say they have seen at least a 15 percent increase in shoplifting since California voters opted to reduce theft penalties in 2014, The Associated Press reports. Shoplifting reports in LA increased 25 percent in the year after Proposition 47 passed.

City Council wants to decriminalize certain offenses

From CBS 2:

Turnstile jumping and public urination are still expected to be treated as crimes warranting an arrest, but a host of minor offenses such as drinking in public are expected to be treated administratively rather than criminally.

The changes would come under planned adjustments to the city’s quality of life laws being worked out by Mayor Bill de Blasio, police Commissioner Bill Bratton, and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, sources said.

The last line of this report is classic. Why ask for ID? Use the honor system!

Homeless sex offenders living near school

From Eyewitness News:

Outside the Skyview Men's Shelter, the men hang out in the evening for a smoke or a drink.

There are 174 homeless men in the shelter, and as many as 30 at any one time, are serious level two or three registered sex offenders.

They live two blocks from an elementary school.

"Once a sex offender always a sex offender and it's too close to the school," a concerned parent said.

At PS 124, there was a sometimes raucous meeting with city officials and parents who say nobody talked to them before turning a family shelter they embraced, into a men's shelter they're afraid of.

Now parents can't let their kids walk to or from school alone.

Life's a beach

From the NY Times:

The New York State Assembly Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force has held an annual conference here for 24 years, attracting lawmakers, lobbyists and labor leaders with 85-degree weather, pristine beaches, and unparalleled networking opportunities.

Officially a chance to discuss issues of concern to Puerto Rican and Hispanic voters, the conference, known as Somos el Futuro, is unofficially a giant schmooze-fest, a place to foster relationships and broker deals by the pool, on the beach or in the casino.

Some longtime conference participants were having none of it. On Saturday afternoon, three members of the Vallone clan — Peter J. Vallone Sr., a former City Council speaker, and two of his sons, Peter Jr., a current councilman, and Paul — were all on the beach, shirtless and bronzed.

The younger Peter Vallone, another possible contender for Queens borough president, was unapologetic about his decision not to attend any of the conference’s panels or networking events; he was treating the weekend as a vacation, with the bonus of being able to run into people on the beach whom he needed to talk to.

“I decided long ago that I wasn’t doing the lecture thing,” he said, adding that he had told colleagues, “ ‘I’ll be on the beach — you can find me there, with a piña colada.’”

Spoken like a true Queens Borough President contender. Interesting how this guy is worried about fluoride in the water but not skin cancer which can actually kill you...

Bloomie thinks drinking in parks should be legal

From New York Magazine:

Mayor Bloomberg has "never understood why we don't let you drink in the park," he recently told a group of community newspapers. "I mean, you go to watch the Philharmonic, you can't have a bottle of wine."